As we close out our third month living with the Coronavirus we reflect on those first few days. One of our first decisions was to cancel our community seder. At the time I spoke with optimism about the future and noted that perhaps we could celebrate the lesser known Pesach Sheni (second Passover) on May 8th discussed in this week’s Torah Portion. I didn’t know in March that this illness would remain a significant threat for so long.
Read MoreI want to begin with a note of gratitude for our community. Over the past two months we have engaged in the sacred work of helping others, worshiping together, making positive change in society, and also ensuring the future of our own community. Our Board of Trustees has been led by our president Sarah Greenblatt through a major rabbinic transition and a pandemic.
Read MoreTonight we will join together, online of course, to celebrate Shavuot. Shavuot is one of our three pilgrimages festivals during which we celebrate receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai. We will join together in prayer, study, and eating cheesecake!
Read MoreOur Torah portion opens this week ba-midbar – in the wilderness. Midbar is the place between mitzrayim, the narrow place of slavery in Egypt, and the promised land. While the Israelites were in this wilderness, their entire future was unknown. God and Moses instructed them to have faith that God would not only protect them but would lead them
Read MoreIn two weeks we will gather on May 28th (virtually of course) to celebrate Shavuot, our festival in which we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. We picture the entire Israelite community standing at the base of the mountain in complete chaos and fear “…
Read MoreEven though we have not been in our sanctuary and chapel for some time, there is one light that is always shining because it has no switch – our ner tamid, eternal light. We place this light in front of our ark in ornate candelabras to fulfill the commandment in Leviticus that we should “lahalot ner tamid, kindle lamps regularly.”
Read MoreThis week I encourage you to consider how we might begin to fulfill the needs of those in our greater New Haven community who we might not know so well. Like many of you, I was shocked to see the lines outside of the Hamden food pantry and to read that they ran out of food –
Read MoreAs Rav Kook teaches us above, Jewish customs and traditions are ever evolving and we always look to the past in order to create a vision for the future. Reading our Torah portion this week, Tazria-Metzora, I discovered newfound empathy as the Priest determined that when someone is afflicted with an illness they would be isolated from the community in their homes for a minimum of seven days.
Read MoreWe have made it through the sea and back onto dry land, leavened bread in hand! Thank you for a wonderful community seder on Thursday night. Seeing so many smiling faces gathered around your seder tables filled me and Cantor Giglio with joy.
Read MoreAs we gather around our tables and screens next week for Passover we will think about the meaning of all of the items on our seder plate - the Matzo, the roasted egg, the maror
Read More